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As soon as Heinrich sat down, he turned on his computer and entered the password that gave him access to his files. He tapped the keyboard and looked over his shoulder at Willi, saying, "These things are the biggest change since I came to work here. Used to be only a few specialists had them. Now they're everywhere, like toadstools after a rain."
"They're handy, all right." Willi had his computer up and ru
"I have a friend"-Heinrich didn't name Walther Stutzman-"who says they could all be co
"There's a hell of a difference between 'could' and 'will,'" Willi said. "I don't believe it'll happen, not in a million years. Can you imagine the security nightmare with that kind of system? Anybody could put anything on it. Anybody couldfind anything on it. The Party's got too much sense to let that sort of nonsense get started. You couldn't stop it once it did; it'd be like unscrambling an egg."
"You're right," Heinrich said. "It only stands to reason." He knew he had more book smarts than Willi. But his friend was plenty shrewd, and understood the way the world-especially the part through which he moved-worked.
"You bet I'm right," Willi said now. "Once security starts to slip, everything's in trouble."
"Ja,"Heinrich said absently. He was busy typing in another password, the one that gave him access to the Wehrmacht 's information links. Thanks to Walther, he knew a lot more passwords than he was supposed to. He carried them in his memory; he wasn't mad enough to write any of them down. He wasn't mad enough to use any of them, either, except in direst emergency. The one he entered he'd acquired legitimately, in the course of his job. "I want to find out what's going on with the United States."
"Yes, that will be interesting," Willi Dorsch agreed. "If they're going to fall short of their assessment, that will putour budget in the red."
"Further in the red," Heinrich said.
Willi nodded. "Further in the red, true. The powers that be won't like it."
"The Americans will scream that we're trying to get blood from a turnip," Heinrich predicted.
"They've been screaming that ever since we beat them," Willi said. "So far, blood's come out every time we've squeezed."
"True, but I don't suppose it can go on forever," Heinrich said. "Look at France. Look at Denmark. They don't pay their way any more-we spend more both places than we take out. We would in Britain and Norway, too, if they hadn't struck oil in the North Sea." He waited to see if Willi would argue with him. He could call up the budget numbers with a couple of keystrokes and use them as a club to beat his friend over the head.
But Willi didn't argue. He knew Heinrich always had facts and figures at his fingertips. Instead, Willi poked through a different part of the Wehrmacht network. He cherished oddities the way Heinrich cherished precision. He got more attention-and certainly more laughs-with them than Heinrich did with tribute assessments, too. That was fine with Heinrich, who didn't want attention anyhow.
Willi scrolled down, scrolled down, then all at once stopped short. "Well, I'll be damned," he said, and let out a low whistle of astonishment.
"Was ist los?"Heinrich asked, as he was surely supposed to.
"They just found three families of Jews in some backwoods village in the Serbian mountains," Willi answered. "Probably hadn't seen German soldiers more than three or four times since the war ended. Can you believe it? Real live Jews, in this day and age? Men had their cocks clipped and everything. The damned Serb headman says he didn't know he was doing anything wrong harboring them. Likely story, eh? You can't trust Serbs, either-look at those bandits in the news today-and that's the God's truth."
His rant let Heinrich pull his face straight. "What happened to them?" he asked, his voice steady, mildly curious, as if it had nothing to do with him. Willi drew a thumb across his throat. Heinrich nodded. "Just what they deserved," he said.Yisgadal v'yiskadash sh'may rabo: the opening words of the Mourner's Kaddish, lovingly taught him by his father, echoed in his mind. So did another thought.If I show my grief, I am dead. My family is dead. My friends are dead. He showed not a thing.
Herr Kessler leaned forward. To Alicia, as to every other student in the class, he seemed to be leaning straight toward her. He took a deep breath. His usually sallow cheeks turned red. He let out the breath in a great shout:"Jews!"
Everybody jumped. Half a dozen girls squealed. Alicia's own start, her own squeal-nearly a shriek-hadn't betrayed her after all. In fact, no one paid any attention to her. All eyes were riveted on the teacher.
And Herr Kessler was wrapped up in his own performance."Jews!" he roared again, even louder than the first time. "Our brave Wehrmacht soldiers caught up with more than a dozen filthy, stinking Jews in the mountains of Serbia. Otto Schachtman!" His forefinger stabbed out at a boy.
Otto sprang to his feet. "Jawohl, Herr Kessler!"
"Show me immediately the location of Serbia on the map. Immediately!"
Otto couldn't do it, though the occupied country was plainly labeled. The teacher paddled his backside. He took the swat in stoic silence. Showing pain would have earned him another one. He didn't get in trouble for sitting down with great care, though. Alicia had only so much sympathy for him. She could have found Serbia without the label; she'd always been good at geography. But why couldn't poor Otto justread?
Herr Kessler pointed out Serbia himself. Then he went back to his tirade: "You see now, dear children, why we must stay ever on our guard. The hateful enemy still lurks within the borders of the Germanic Empire. Like a serpent, the Jew waits until our attention is turned elsewhere. He waits, and then hestrikes! We must track him down and hunt him out wherever he may hide. Do you understand?"
"Ja, Herr Kessler," the children chorused. Alicia made sure her voice rang as loud as any of the others. She was still frightened at the idea of being a Jew, but it didn't throw her into blind panic any more. She'd had a little while to get used to it, a little while even to develop an odd sort of pride in it.
But then the teacher pointed at her. "Alicia Gimpel!"
She was out of her chair and at attention behind it in a heartbeat. "Jawohl, Herr Kessler!"
"What is a Jew?"
All she had to do was point at her own chest and say,I am a Jew, to ruin herself and everyone she loved. She knew that. Knowing it came close to bringing the blind panic back. It came close, but didn't quite manage-not least because the familiar fear at being unexpectedly called on left little room for the other.
She knew her lessons well. No one in the class knew them better. "The Jew is the opposite of the Aryan,Herr Kessler," she recited. "He is and remains the typical parasite, a sponger who like a noxious bacillus keeps spreading as soon as a favorable medium invites him. Wherever he appears, the host people dies out after a shorter or longer period. Existence impels the Jew to lie, and to lie perpetually. He lacks idealism in any form. His development has always and at all times been the same, just as that of the peoples corroded by him has also been the same."
She stopped. She knew she had the textbook definition straight. Up until a little while before, she'd believed every word of it. Part of her still did. The rest…The rest seemed to stand outside of the self she'd had before the night that turned out to be Purim. She felt somehow bigger than she had before that night. Her new self enclosed the old-and who could say how much else besides?
Herr Kessler drummed the fingers of his right hand against the side of his thigh. "This is correct," he said, as if he didn't care to admit it. "Now-you will tell me the meaning of the wordnoxious." He spoke with a certain gloating anticipation. If she were parroting the definition without grasping what went into it, he would make her pay for that.